1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optoelectronic device, and more particularly, to a method of manufacturing an Er-doped silicon nano-dot array applicable to a silicon optoelectronic device and a laser ablation apparatus used therein
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to use silicon having an indirect energy band gap as a material of an optoelectronic device, the development of an efficient method of doping silicon with a luminous substance is required Also, the development of a method of forming nanometer level silicon structure is required.
Erbium (Er) is treated as a luminous material, which will be doped on silicon. Er-doped silicon has a photoluminescenec (PL) peak of 1.54 μm and thus is noticed in view of a silicon-based optoelectronic device To manufacture an optoelectronic device using Er-doped silicon, a method of manufacturing a silicon film, which is effectively doped with Er should be developed Also, a method of patterning an Er-doped silicon film to nanometer level should be developed.
A variety of attempts to use a laser ablation method in forming an Er-doped silicon film have been made. To use the laser ablation method, a target for depositing the Er-doped silicon film is required. For example, a method of manufacturing a target by mixing and sintering Er oxide (Er2O3) powder and silicon powder has been suggested. Here, impurities may occur due to the sintering.
However, if an Er-doped silicon film is used as an optoelectronic device, a method of manufacturing an Er-doped silicon film having a higher purity by preventing impurities is required to obtain a high luminous efficiency, i.e., to increase an optoelectronic efficiency of the Er-doped silicon film. Thus, the introduction of a target for providing a higher purity is required
An Er-doped silicon film should be patterned to use the Er-doped silicon film as an optoelectronic device Here, the Er-doped silicon film is patterned to form the Er-doped silicon structures having a nanometer size so that the Er-doped silicon structures having a nanometer size are uniformly arrayed. Thus, a method of patterning the Er-doped silicon film as an array having a nanometer size is required.